The British merchant in the Far East is the first to condemn his own Minister and to abuse his own Consul, and he is the very last to help himself. It may be, however, that the follies of the Imperial Government, the unreasoning prejudices and foolish blundering of the Foreign Office, have created this apathy. The drifting and vacuous policy of Lord Salisbury made it impossible to avert the decay of our prestige and trade which has set in throughout the Far East. Official returns establish only too completely the unhappy predicament in which trade and merchants alike are placed. There is a general decrease in the volume of the one, and there has been no sympathetic activity among those engaged in commercial interests elsewhere to set against it. The deficiency is almost without solution, so long as bounty-fed manufactures, carried in subsidised bottoms, are set against the products of an unassisted trade. Competition is increasing, and foreign manufacturers are themselves now meeting the requirements of the markets of China. There is little prospect in the future of the restoration of our former commercial superiority. Much might be attempted, although it seems almost as if the British merchant were so bent upon his own damnation, that little could be done. The decline of British trade cannot be attributed in any way to the late disturbances in North China, to the decline in the purchasing power of the dollar, or to the temporary rise in the market prices. Japan has become our most formidable competitor. The decrease in our trade is due entirely to the commercial development and rise of Japan, who, together with America, has successfully taken from us markets in which, prior to their appearance, British goods were supreme. The gravity of the situation in which British trade is placed cannot be lightly regarded. We still lay claim to the carrying trade of the Far East; but the figures, which support our pre-eminence in this direction are totally unreliable. If the true conditions were made manifest, it would be seen that so far from leading the shipping of the world in the Far East, Great Britain could claim but a small proportion of the freights carried. Although we may own the ships, neither our markets nor our manufactures are associated with their cargoes. It would be well if the public could grasp this feature of the China trade. Members of Parliament, ignorant of the deductions which are necessary before claiming the carrying trade of the Far East—much less of the Yang-tse and of the China coast—as an asset in our commercial prosperity, and a sign of vigour of the first magnitude, do not recognise how unsubstantial is the travesty of affluence which they so constantly applaud. [Illustration: BRICK LAYING EXTRAORDINARY]